Balancing Marime Cost versus Risk in the Global Drive for Energy Resilience


Gillian Millar Moffa & Nichol


The typical method to provide protecon to berth vessels in an exposed locaon is with a breakwater. This is neither innovave nor new, since breakwaters have been providing protecon to marine infrastructure projects for many hundreds of years. However, breakwaters are expensive, with the cost exponenally increasing with water depth due to both profile and increasing wave height.


Consequently, innovave alternaves and new technologies are being considered and introduced to bypass the requirement for breakwater structures, by finding acceptable compromise between operaonal risk, both physical and financial, and capex costs. The main areas of evaluaon include:


Vessel resilience on the mooring


Measures to decouple tethered vessels (FLNG/FSRU) in ancipaon/response to storm/tsunami events


The declining gas prices are encouraging increasing consideraon of innovave technologies and soluons, in an aempt to drive down cost and increase (or at least stabilise) profitability. In the


Measures to isolate moored producon vessels from LNG carriers, by floang cryogenic hoses, transfer arms and similar


With the oil price plunge, fluctuaon in commodity values and global incidents shaking the financial markets, the bankable feasibility of any marine infrastructure project is now more challenging than ever. In combinaon, the surge in United States’ natural gas producon from the shale boom and the Western Australia’s Prelude coming online in the next year (the world’s largest floang LNG producon – FLNG for short) are expected to transform global gas markets. Export projects are on track to add more LNG (liquid natural gas) to an already oversupplied market, pushing down prices and encouraging changes to global contracng mechanisms. Across Africa, Lan America, South‐East Asia and the Caribbean, countries that have faced chronic shortages of affordable fuels are quickly posioning themselves to benefit from the surplus in LNG. Fuelled by economic growth and subsidised electricity prices that encourage consumpon, gas demands are rising, promong significant investment in import projects.


Shore‐connected LNG facility, USA Society of Marime Industries Handbook & Members’ Directory 2018 29


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